B) Suicide.
Correct. Nicely done. You’ve been reading Leonard Digges.
Digges – in his 1623 Folio elegy which is basically an ode to suicide and by way of information contained in his 1640Poems: Written elegy – told the world Shakespeare killed himself. It’s just that nobody decided to study and research what Digges wrote until Shakespeare’s Death Research Project decided to do it.
It’s hardly surprising the guy who wrote To be or not to be – which can be modernized as Should I kill myself or not – in fact, committed suicide. What is surprising is that nobody decided to research Leonard Digges until the Project did. That, is shocking. Mind-boggling, really.
Suppose for one moment, just as an exercise, suppose someone committed suicide in the 17th century; then, think how that death would be reflected in the historical record. By way of a test, just for fun, line up the known, factual, historical record characteristics surrounding Shakespeare’s death next to it. The comparative looks like this:
- the death would be shrouded in silence: check.
- it would likely be a mystery because no one wrote about it: check.
- there would be no contemporaneous comment about the cause of death: check.
- there might be no record of a funeral occurring: check.
- there might not have been a funeral: check.
- there might be grave-marker uncertainties: check
- there might be burial oddities and irregularities: check.
- they certainly couldn’t be buried at Westminster Abbey: check.
- had the deceased ever let their views on suicide be known: check.
- did the deceased hold a positive, noble, view of suicide: check.
- somebody, let’s say, Leonard Digges, who knew the cause of death – wanting to ensure the deceased wouldn’t be remembered as a sinner or criminal or be seen as a polluted corpse – might write an elegy, referring to, and defending, suicide without letting on he was doing so and in the process cleverly and surreptitiously defend the person’s decision to commit suicide: check.
Digges constructed his 1623 elegy in such a fashion that accomplished two aims: 1) his language was subtle enough so as not to seem he was blabbering about his defence of suicide and 2) overt enough to show anyone – who understood his true meaning – how he felt about his friend’s death. It’s quite brilliant, actually.
But don’t believe this webpage just because this webpage says Shakespeare killed himself. Learn about Leonard Digges, then read the research undertaken by Shakespeare’s Death Research Project at www.shakespearesdeath.com and then decide for yourself.
The Project has not been able to determine whether Shakespeare was ill when he killed himself; maybe yea, maybe no. But, make no mistake, it was Shakespeare’s own hand that caused his death; ill or not. And, the Project hasn’t been able to determine if he swallowed poison, like Romeo, or maybe opted for falling on his sword , you know, the way noble Romans committed suicide.
Between today and, say, 10-20 years from now, all competent Shakespeare scholarship will view Shakespeare’s death thusly: the overwhelming evidence leads us to believe he killed himself; he chose not to be. And that’s that.
Congratulations on picking ‘Suicide.’ You are an independent, critical thinker unmoved by a narrative built on 400 years of blindly following the tyranny of custom and unwilling to follow 400 years of sub-standard herd research. Well done! The Project salutes your willingness to pick an unpopular answer even in the face of entrenched academic, though entirely unsupported, orthodoxy.
Shakespeare’s Death Research Project
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